Roman Britain

Tribal Names: Creones, Carnonacae & Caereni

by Edward Dawson, 29 August 2011

"Next to the Damnoni, but more toward the east near
the Epidium promontory are the Epidi and next to these the Cerones;
then the Carnonacae, and the Caereni but more toward the east."

Cerones (or Creones), Carnonacae and Caereni?
Ptolemy was probably doing the best he could but that seems to be far too
coincidental. What three tribes would sit side by side and calmly tolerate
nearly identical names? Given Celtic pride issues, that would be absurd.
Three more likely possibilities present themselves:

The three have a common origin as a single
tribe. They knew they had a common origin, and didn't mind the similarity
in names because they knew they were all one tribe under different rulers.

The area north from Argyll was occupied by
one single tribe, not three. Due to
variations in pronunciation by everyone involved, Ptolemy
misunderstood his data and wrote down the three versions he
received as three tribes, not one.

The tribe(s) lived in a region which
already had such a name, and adopted it
in various pronunciations.

If one reads Ptolemy and places the tribes on a map
you get a series of four, not three, tribes with similar sounding names (south
to north up the western coast of Scotland): Cerones/Creones, Carnonacae,
Caereni, Cornavii.

It seems highly possible that the Cornavii were probably
a branch of the same tribe that inhabited western Cornwall and a district in Britanny.
Not far from them, Ptolemy reports a tribe of Decantae (of, or from, the Cantae, a
possible offshoot of of the Cantiaci in Kent). If one reads historical records of
the migrations of German tribes that split into fragments and travelled all the way
from one end of Europe to the other, and farther, then it is no stretch of the
imagination to assume that the Cantiaci could have done the same.

The tribal area would approximately encompass the
north-west Highlands, starting around northern Argyll and Mull, and
extending some distance up the coast (perhaps opposite Skye and
including Skye itself), and an unknown distance eastwards into the interior.

A Pictish hanging bowl from the sixth or seventh century, a
product of later Pictland which included the Highlands and the
tribal territory of the Creones and their neighbours

Argyll Forest Park in western Scotland would have been part of
Creones territory

It is reasonable to expect that they participated in the Battle of
Mons Graupius (or Mons Grampius) in AD 83 against the Romans under
Agricola, which the Picts lost. It is also reasonable to expect that
they participated in the Battle of Dun Nectan in AD 685 against the
Northumbrians under King Ecgfrith, from which the Picts won a total victory.

Creones Name

The meaning of the name is unknown, but given known
Celtic tendencies one may conjecture that the name comes from the
horned god, Cernunnos, either directly or via a leader who was
himself named after
the god. There is also the possibility that if the tribe really did
adopt their name from the region itself, as postulated above, then
the name derives from a Celtic word for a prominent stone or pile of
stones, a word imported into modern English as cairn. A mountain
range in the area is today known as the Cairngorms, after the
prominent peak, Cairn Gorm.

The Creones in their various guises may or may not be tribally
related to the similarly-named peoples in the Midlands (the Cornovii), in Cornwall
(Cornubia), and Kernev in Brittany (Cornouaille). As with the widely scattered
Veneti, there is no way to determine their tribal origins.

There is a mention in the Ravenna Cosmography of a
town called Credigone (Old Kilpatrick in Scotland) which might
possibly be related to this tribe or tribes. A more likely candidate
for linking to the tribes is the modern town of Crinan on the bay called
Loch Crinan (or Creran), which appears to derive from the tribal name.

The three tribes appear to have been members of the
Caledonii/Caledoni, a tribal alliance whose name is obscure but
the second part is rather suggestive of 'fortress' (-dun). Another and more
exciting possibility comes to mind however. Given that the '-i' is a
Roman plural, then '-on' would be the Brythonic plural, leaving 'Caled'
as the actual name. This is another form of the most ancient known
name of the Celts, which was reported variously as beginning with a
'g' or 'k' sound, followed by an 'a' or 'e', followed always by an 'l', and
followed by either a vowel or not, and finally by a 'd' or 't'. So Kelt,
Galat, or in this case, Caled all mean the same thing.

This tribe or tribes would have been under the
domination at various times of the high king of the Picts (ie. the
king of Alba), and later the high king of the North Picts, before
gradually being taken over by Dal Riadan Scots as they expanded up from the
south.

The town of Crinan could have gained its name thanks to the nearby
Creones